DIODE DYNAMICS

How many lighting companies are there? Too many. How many lighting manufacturers are there? Fewer. How many lighting companies engineer, manufacture, test and use their own products in North America? Honestly, we didn’t think there were any. As it turns out Diode Dynamics (DD) out of St. Louis, Missouri is one. Their latest Stage Series 2” LED pods have higher output intensity than any other 2” pod on the market using DD’s Total Internal Reflection (TIR) optics. This means all the light is directed exactly where it is intended – highly efficient with little glare.

The comany is building on their successful SS3 3” LED pods. The SSC2 pod was developed to fit in places where the SS3 won’t like tight spaces on roof racks or for flush mounting in bumpers.

Choose from five different auxiliary lighting styles depending on what you need:

Spot – blasts out a six-degree beam of light into the distance.

Fog – SAE-approved wide, 80-degree spread to enhance road visibility down low in front of your truck when the weather isn’t cooperating.

Flood – DD says it’s perfect for use as a reverse light, for low-speed driving, or illuminating camp and worksites. It evenly lights a 60 x 60-degree area using pillow optics on the outer lens rather than just diffusing (obscuring) a spotlight.

Driving – SAE-legal 18 x 8-degree light pattern to supplement your high beams for seeing down the road and driving at higher speeds.

Combo – this has a flood optic on one side and a driving optic on the other to create a rectangular 40 x 20-degree spread to light the trail or road ahead.

Each option is available in either a bracket or flush mount in either white (6000K) or yellow (3000K) and Sport (871 lumens measured) or Pro (1988 lumens measured) output.

We like the fact that each SSC2 is constructed the same way, which means by changing the lens, you can change the beam pattern, or by adding an amber cover to a white pod, you can change the colour.

Another neat feature is the choice of backlight colours – amber, red, blue and white. The backlight colour is present when the lights are not on.

Put a white flood on your rear bumper with a red backlight and you’ve got a great looking parking light and then when you turn it on, it becomes that bright white flood. Around the rest of your vehicle it gives you an accent colour to personalize your vehicle’s profile.

If you need (want) even more light and have a little extra room look at the SS3 3” LED pods, which are available in the same beam spread, colour and mounting options but produce almost double the light - Sport (1520 lumens measured) or Pro (3000 lumens measured). The brand-new Max is just being released and while we don’t have the measured lumen output yet, Diode Dynamics says the four Osram HX Boost 20-watt LEDs combine to produce 250,000 max candela. In other words, they produce the equivalent output of a quarter-million candles.

Diodedynamics.com

Go Rhino’s (GR) SRM rack uses GR’s 4-core channel tech. It’s an extruded track system that features cross rails with slots that accept any 1/4-20 hex bolt, which means you can securely mount virtually anything to your rack.

There are three styles in the SRM series, all of which are available in different lengths so you can choose exactly the right rack for your 4x4 and your adventures. The SRM600 is a basket-style rack and the SRM500 is a platform rack (great for rooftop tents - RTTs). They come in lengths of 140, 165, and 191 cm (55, 65 and 75 in) and are 132 cm (52 in) wide.

The SRM400 is a customizable basket style-roof rack with removable fairings so you can haul longer items, like paddleboards and kayaks. The front fairing reduces wind noise while the mesh rear allows for venting. It comes in lengths of 122, 147, and 173 cm (48, 58 and 68 in) and is 132 cm (52 in) wide.

“The SRM roof racks come with pre-drilled holes for a variety of light mounting options and each rack comes with four Rhino Clamps, which makes them mountable to any OE crossbar system,” says said Glen Kukula, Managing Director at Go Rhino.

“We wanted to make a family of racks that could help people with any kind of activity. The 4-CORE technology, the universal applications, mounting systems, the lighting options…it’s all about making it easy and helpful for the customer.”

While mounting to OE racks is handy, some vehicles (like Wranglers) don’t have OE racks and often the load rating for an OE rack isn’t enough for overlanding or an RTT. Go Rhino offers alternative mounting kits for the SRM600, SRM500 and SRM400 roof racks.

The Rain Gutter Mounting Kit requires no drilling and the brackets attach to any vehicle’s rain gutters. There are four-bracket and six-bracket options, depending on the length of your vehicle but the max load is 68 kg

(150 lb), evenly distributed. GR notes that, “Steel rain gutters are best but the clamps will work on any material.” They also recommend that for all mounting systems “the manufacturer’s manual is checked for weight recommendations and load capacity. This is especially true with aluminum or fiberglass roofs.”

As we are Wrangler JK owners

(this also works for the JL), we are attracted to GR’s Roll Bar Mounting Kit, which (you guessed it) mounts the rack directly to the vehicle’s roll bars. It can be installed topless or with a hard top, and has a maximum load capacity of 272 kg (600 lb), allowing it to easily support an RTT with the SRM500 platform rack.

Go Rhino’s heavy-duty mounting solutions for non-Jeep vehicles depend on the shape of the roof. There is the Fixed Mounting kit for a flat-roofed vehicle or any other flat surface, providing it has the load capacity (for instance building your own off-road trailer). Additionally, the Multi-Axis Mounting kit has a tri-axis adjustment so you can match the curvature of a roof.

MSRP for racks: $500 to $700 USD MSRP for mounting kits: $100 to $150 USD

For more information visit www.gorhino.com